22 Nov How to Become an Authority in Your Real Estate Niche
Episode 19:
Adam Witty is the Chief Executive Officer of Advantage Media Group and ForbesBooks. Adam has built Advantage Media Group, the business growth company, into one of the largest business book publishers in America serving over 1,000 members in 40 US states and 13 countries. Advantage was also listed on the Inc. 5,000 list of America's most rapidly growing private companies from 2012 all the way through to 2016. Most recently, Advantage has actually partnered with Forbes to create ForbesBooks, the first book publishing imprint for the global media company.
Launched in 2016, ForbesBooks is the next step in Forbes 100 year history of distribution and innovation in the media business. Utilizing the Forbes multi-platform media network, ForbesBooks offers a branding, visibility, and marketing platform to business authors. The exclusive imprint not only gets books to market faster than other top business book publishers, which is super important, it also provides a holistic branding, visibility and marketing platform for leading business leaders and idea makers. In addition to his work with Advantage and ForbesBooks, Adam is a sought after speaker, teacher, and consultant on marketing and business growth techniques for entrepreneurs and authors. He's actually shared the stage with Steve Forbes, Gene Simmons of Kiss, Peter Guber, and Bobby Bowden.
Adam has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, in US Today and more. He was named actually to the Young Presidents Organization 40 Under 40, 50 most progressive, and was also named to the 2011 Inc. Magazine 30 Under 30 list of America's coolest entrepreneurs.
Adam, I could keep going. Quite an impressive background. I had a chance to visit your office, so I'm looking forward to our chat and I welcome you to the show.
Well Chris, thanks so much for having me. We're going to have a lot of fun today with your listeners and, of course, it's so great to be able to speak with a member of the Advantage family. Of course, you're an author of Real Estate On Your Terms, just a phenomenal book that you've created and it's been a great privilege for us to be able to work with you on that.
Well, I appreciate it, and obviously, as the saying goes, I couldn't have done it without you guys. It was quite impressive what you all kind of allude to and talk about during this show today. Just to kick things off, Adam, and then we'll take in a couple different directions. Maybe take us behind the green curtain, so to speak, as I always like to start these interviews, and give some context our listeners kind of the when, how, and why you got started in this business, because again, I've seen the office, I've watched the scalability of what you're doing, it's quite impressive.
Well, I believe that no kid in America wants to grow up and be a book publisher. I can promise you I didn't either. I wanted to be a professional basketball player, and what I realized at a very early age, even though I was 6′ 6″, I wasn't all that good at basketball. The old saying that white boys can't jump. Well, I think there's some truth to that. I ended up interning for a publishing company for two summers when I was in high school, and I thought I would hate it. I ended up really liking it, and then I went off to college and didn't think much more of that two-year summer internship program. I’m in college — I’m at Clemson and I have this entrepreneurial itch. I was very fortunate. My father was an entrepreneur and I had a chance to grow up in a very entrepreneurial environment and had a chance to see him struggle, but also have great success up close and personal.
When I was in college it became very apparent from my professors and from my friends, who told me many times that I was highly unemployable. I'm in college and I knew I wanted to do something on my own, at least give something a try, but I didn't really know what it was and I'm literally at home in central Florida, where I grew up, and this is a week or two before I'm about to graduate from college. I didn't have a plan and I'm having lunch with my mentor, who is a gentleman by the name of Pat Williams. Pat is the founder of the Orlando Magic basketball team and a very well accomplished Forbes executive and also a motivational speaker. Pat and I are having lunch and he looks at me he says, “Adam, you need to start a publishing company for business people.”
I kind of do a double take and I look at him with this strange look on my face and I say, “What in the world are you talking about?” And he said, “Adam, you know more about publishing than 99.99999% of all human beings on this planet.” He said, “If that doesn't qualify you to have what it takes to go start a publishing company, I don't know what does.” I learned a very valuable lesson at that point. I learned that whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right. It essentially becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and at that moment in time I didn't think that I had what it took to start a publishing company and Pat Williams very quickly reframed and refocused and helped me understand that wait a minute, I know more than most people, I do have what it takes to be successful.
Really, at the end of the day the calculus that Pat Williams made to me was that every business person, every CEO, every entrepreneur, every professional really needs to have a book because when you're the author of the book on the topic you are seen as the authority, you are seen as the thought leader in the field and that can give you a significant unfair advantage in the marketplace. With that motivation and that encouragement in 2005, not knowing any better, I opened the doors for business.
Source: Pexels
[bctt tweet=”“Every entrepreneur needs to have a book to become the authority in their niche.” – Adam Witty”]
Well, I think a bunch of things you said are really cool and I want to go back to. One is the reference you made to if you think you can, you can and so on, and that was through your mentor. I just wanted you to comment briefly, and it wasn't even in my notes today, about the importance of mentors in general, because clearly, that was a pivotal point in your growth and in your story. How important have mentors been to you throughout your growth, Adam? And maybe share your mentor is now if it's changed, he or she has changed.
I've always been this big believer that success leaves clues, and I don't care what you want to do in life, whether you want to get rich in real estate, whether you want to own an NBA basketball team or whether you want to start a hedge fund. Regardless of the path that you want to take in life, and it doesn't matter how old you are you either, there is somebody that is almost certainly done that before you and they blazed the trail to do that. What I have found in my life, Chris, is that really successful people got there because they had someone that either guided them or mentored them or gave them a helping hand and most really successful people have a pay-it-back mindset, and that is that they know that there was somebody that helped them get to where they are and they're willing to pay it back by helping somebody else get to where they want to go. There's a lot of gratification, there's a lot of fulfillment when you can mentor, guide, and lead someone to accomplish things that they never thought that they could accomplish before.
I remember as a kid, I played basketball. I was a huge Orlando Magic basketball fan, and my dream as a kid was to own an NBA basketball team. That was my goal. I wanted to be in the basketball business. Pat Williams, who started the team, wrote a book about it, and I remember reading the book and after I read the book I wrote him a letter. Believe it or not, he wrote me back and that began a pen pal relationship, if you will, and finally, in one of the letters I said, “Mr. Williams, I'd like to take you out to lunch.” By the way, at the time I had just turned 16 and my mom didn't feel confident enough to me driving all the way across town so she literally drove me to lunch with Pat Williams. I was shocked that he said yes, but what I've learned over the years is that is not as uncommon as you think because whether you're Warren Buffett, Bill Gates or Pat Williams, these really successful people don't get as many letters from people saying, “Will you mentor me? Can I take you to lunch?” as you might think, and for most people, again, there's that pay-it-back mentality.
I will tell you that I think mentors have been hugely important to me in helping me learn, helping me grow, helping me mature and I would say that every listener on this podcast, if you don't have a mentor it's never too late. For me, Pat Williams has been a mentor of mine for the last 17 years. He's played an integral role in the success of my life. I have another mentor who's been working with me as a CEO for the last six years and this gentleman is an author of ours, but he had started and grown a business to over 100 billion dollars in annual sales. When I started Advantage I had a very similar ambition as I wanted to grow this to become a really big company and I said, “Okay, if I'm going to do that I need to get help from people that have done it before.” Today I have three or four different mentors on three or four different areas. These three or four mentors have specialization, deep knowledge in a handful of different areas that I think are important for me to develop skills in those areas so I can achieve the potential and the ambition that I have.
I think that's so cool Adam, and as you're talking I'm scribbling notes. I think back to … gosh, I don't know the date myself a little bit here, but probably early '90s is when I started finding someone and that was probably around a little bit older than you. Maybe I was where I was in the '90s, but maybe in my 20s, but I would reach out to them and do the exact same thing, just compliment and go have coffee or lunch. I hope that rings loudly in everyone's ears because I'm not so naive to think it's me, you're not so naive to think it's you, there's a whole bunch of other people they can go mentor with, seek advice from etc. and I love the way you shared that story. Thank you so much for that, as well as the kind of niching through the different areas of your life and business.
You had mentioned early on, here in the chat, about authority marketing and kind of passed over it. I know the publishing world is a busy space. I was probably bombarded with, I don't know, dozens of different companies. I absolutely, hands down, chose Advantage. Can you talk a little bit about the authority marketing, because I know that attracted me, and a little bit about that so they understand what you meant by that reference?
Yeah. Authority marketing is a term that a lot of your listeners may not be familiar with, and let me start by providing a definition and then I can give some context of why it's important and how somebody could implement it in their business. By definition, authority marketing is the strategic and systematic process of positioning an individual or a company as a leader or an expert in their industry, community or marketplace. The reason being seen as an authority is so darn important is because it allows you to command outside influence over the competition. Of course, you and I know this Chris. I think a lot of our listeners probably know this too, but it's worth reminding. People buy on perception, not on reality.
Now, if you want to have a great business that can stand the test of time the reality has the back up the perception, otherwise you're going to have a lot of unhappy customers and you'll be out of business before you're really ever in business, but one should never forget the people beyond perception, not reality.
The other really important thing to note is that authority can be manufactured and here's what I mean by that. You have to know your stuff. I can't change or invent that for you. You truly have to have the experience, the knowledge, the expertise, and certainly, the passion, in whatever area it is that you work in, whether it's real estate, whether it's finance, whether it's manufacturing, whether you're a life coach. Doesn't matter. You've got to have the credentials, the experience, and the track record, but the truth is, Chris, that most people are really bad at tooting their own horn. The reason you should invest time and energy in tooting your own horn is because if you don't someone else will toot their horn and will have the upper hand over you.
Authority marketing is really strategically and systematically building a plan in which we are marketing you or your company as an authority and expert on the topic. A great way to build authority, and it's one of the pillars of authority marketing, is authoring a book on the topic.
You Chris, you're in a crowded industry, of course. There's a lot of people that are coaching and teaching and helping people make money in real estate. However, you wrote the book Real Estate On Your Own Terms, and on top of writing the book, you've used the book to be a guest on podcasts, to be a guest on radio, to speak, to get media, to build your brand as author of Real Estate On Your Own Terms. This whole idea of authority marketing is being very intentional about demonstrating to your target market, these are customers that can give you money, demonstrating to them that you know your stuff. At the end of the day, in really simple terms, that's what authority marketing is.
Super, super clear and concise. Let's take that to the next level here. I've had this discussion with people. Someone is listening and they're thinking, “Okay, what are the steps…” if you will, or I know I read some of your stuff called the pillars of authority marketing.” If you want to kind of brush on those, just to give them a little bit kind of next level of what you're talking about.
Yes. Authority is something that doesn't just happen overnight. The one thing to note that's really important about authority marketing is, it is a significant investment in time, in money, and in resources. Okay? It's not a silver bullet. However, done right, authority marketing a something that will serve you and your business for the rest of your professional career. We have members that have worked with Advantage and ForbesBooks to create books, and those books were written 10 years ago and they are still generating leads and customers for that business. The book was created 10 years ago, it stood the test of time. Investing in authority marketing, investing in becoming an author is something that is a long-term play. I think it's important that your listeners know that.
Now, there's a lot of different facets to authority marketing, and the truth is, depending on the type of business you're in and depending upon the goals that you have, you don't have to utilize each one of these pillars. I'll quickly name the seven pillars to at least give the listeners a framework of what's involved.
Very quickly and in no particular order, the pillars of authority marketing are branding and omnipresence, lead generation, referral marketing, content marketing, speaking, event, and PR and media, that's the seventh. Depending on what it is that you want to accomplish you might utilize all of those pillars or just a couple. I'm going to talk in depth just on one for a minute, and that is PR and media.
As an entrepreneur or as a CEO you should have a desire to get media, you should have a desire to get free publicity for you and your business, whether that publicity comes at a national level, a local level, or even an industry-specific level. When you are in the news, when other people are talking about you, it creates this perception that you're larger than life. In addition, the old saying, “People don't believe what you say about yourself, but they sure do believe what other people say about you.” It’s another reason that getting publicity can be really important and beneficial to your business. We could talk for hours in depth on these seven pillars, but at least, at a 500-foot level, those are some of the key ways that you can build authority for your brand and for yourself.
That's great. It's exactly where I wanted you to go and if I'm not mistaken we were just kind of chit-chatting before the interview here, Adam, and you mentioned that you are 100% open to letting them have a copy of your book that I read before coming out to your headquarters, which was quite impressive and got me on a plane, called Lead The Field. How can they get that? And we'll say it again at the end of the show, but it reminded me when you were talking about the pillars they can learn more about it and they can get their hands on that, right?
Yes. This is a really cool book because, first and foremost, it's a short book. It's not overly long and in an hour and a half or two hours you could read the book from front cover to back cover and it will give you a CliffsNotes version of authority marketing so you'll understand how you can use it in your business. The book is titled Lead The Field and we have a free copy available to every listener of this podcast. All you have to do is visit the website ForbesBooks.com/SmartRealEstate. Of course, that's all one word, ForbesBooks.com/SmartRealEstate.
I appreciate that, and that'll give them kind of the next level look into that. Go this route. Follow me on if you could. You obviously deal with all kinds of different professions because I was in your office and I saw stacks and stacks of super, super successful books that you guys have published, heard some great stories from the guys I worked with for a full day in your conference room and what would you say, whether it's real estate or other professions, are some of the, let's say, biggest obstacles to someone jumping on board with this project? Because I'm sure all kinds of things are swirling around their minds now, as they hear you talk, so let's maybe pull some of those out and talk about how they can get over some of those.
Yeah. There are obstacles, and I'll tell you what the biggest obstacle is. It's surprising because the people that we work with, people just like you, Chris, are very successful, very affluent and wealthy and have achieved a lot personally and professionally. To put it simply, we are really working with peak performers and that makes what we do a lot of fun because the people we work with are a lot of fun and just really, really cool individuals or fascinating. I would tell you that all of those successful people have a story that plays in the back of their head that says, “I'm not good enough. I'm not strong enough,” and they question, “Do I really know what I'm talking about and will someone try to say that I'm a fake or I'm an imposter.”
I can't tell you how many people that we sit down to work with say, “I'm worried that my competitor … I'm worried that somebody in my industry, if I write this 200-page book, will try to present me as a guy or a gal that doesn't really know what they're talking about.” The truth is, we all have insecurities, even the most successful people, we have insecurities and those insecurities continue to gnaw at us, and when it comes to writing a book, when it comes to staking your claim as THE authority, there's a lot of head trash that's going on in the back of our mind, and believe it or not, the biggest thing that we have to overcome is to work with our members to kind of clear some of that head trash and help them understand, “No, no, no, no, you are the expert. You have more experience on this topic than 99.99999% percent of your peers, and if you truly want to make a dent in the universe you owe it to the world to tell everybody all the things that you know so you can help them improve their life and improve their business.”
Source: Pexels
[bctt tweet=”“Even the most successful entrepreneurs feel insecure about being the expert.” – Adam Witty”]
It's funny you said that as the biggest obstacle because without asking you that in any prior conversations I had an email this morning. I had recommended someone, and I do often, to Advantage and the person wrote back, it was a woman, she wrote back, “But do I have enough knowledge?” She immediately wrote that back. This was today. So, funny that you brought that up and I'm super glad you pinpointed this. I will direct that person to not only you guys, but this podcast. That would be fun.
A little twist here, we've all made mistakes along the way. Obviously, I opened my book with one of my biggest debacles, which was after the 2008 downturn in the market, but you've had mentors and you know people who are successful, they don't allow failures to beat them up, they don't stay in the fetal position. Instead, they jump back on their feet, they come up swinging. Tell us about a failure or experience that you may have had, but because of it, you had some huge success or some piece of success.
Yeah. I would tell you that the biggest mistake that I've made is what I'll call not knowing my numbers. I'll tell you this little story that makes the point. I started the company in 2005, and at the time I was 22 years old, when I started the business and I didn't know a whole lot about business. Now, I had confidence and that was good because that got me through a lot of those doubting moments, but at the end of the day, when you start a business of 22 there's a lot of things in the world that you don't know. The first four or five years of the business we had success. We grew to be a million and a half, two million dollars a year business, which from scratch is certainly an accomplishment.
However, I didn't know my numbers. I didn't track my numbers and I didn't have tangible data to make smart decisions. What that meant is that I was hiring people in positions I really didn't need. I was spending money in places that weren't as important, and the places that were, they weren't getting any attention or any resources at all. Five years in, I'm absolutely working my tail off. I'm working 60 hours a week. I've got a million and a half dollar business and I think I had paid myself $50,000 a year. Now, when you're work and 60, 70 hours a week and you're making $50,000 a year, by the time you take away all the taxes, what you realize is that you're working for minimum wage and the reason I was working for minimum wage is because I didn't know my numbers. I didn't know what labor efficiency ratios were. I didn't know this concept of revenue per head. I didn't understand direct response marketing where I could literally track every dollar I spent in marketing to determine whether or not it made enough money to continue doing or didn't make enough money so we should do something else. I didn't have data at my fingertips and so I was really making decisions kind of in the blind.
I read a book that the kind of changed the course and the book was titled American Icon. The story of the book was about this guy named Alan Mulally, who came to become the CEO of Ford Motor Company and Alan Mulally was the guy that saved Ford. Of course, we all know now that Ford was the only auto company in the US that didn't require a government bailout and Alan Mulally literally turned Ford from $20 billion loss to $20 billion net profit and that turnaround happened over a period of about six or seven years. In the book, the author talks about Alan Mulally’s insistence on having data. In fact, Mulally famously says, Chris, “The data will set you free.”
Alan Mulally had created this weekly meeting at Ford that was called the business plan review, and the business plan review was for him and the senior leaders of the Ford Motor Company and every leader would present essentially a PowerPoint slide and on that slide was nothing but numbers and data and they were tracking everything and they knew whether they were ahead of schedule, behind schedule or on track, and every week each one of these slides was a rainbow of colors, red, yellow, or green and at the end of that meeting the executives could decide where they needed to apply special attention, where they immediately needed to make changes or make enhancements to get the business back on track to where it needed to be.
Of course, Ford is a multi-billion dollar company and here I am running a $1.5 million company at the time, but the principle applied. What I did, Chris, is I really got focused on knowing my numbers and having data and then training myself and the team around me to use the data as the basis on which we made all decisions, and I can tell you, we've grown by a factor of about 17 over the last five years and it's all because the data has set us free and today, as CEO, I know by numbers in every department inside and out and I can't recall that number off the top of my head I simply open up the business plan review document, which is updated every Monday morning and I've got a number so I can make a more informed decision to help grow the business.
Well, amazing story and if 17 times growth doesn't get every listener to jump on Amazon right now and grab the American Icon book I don't know what would. I scribbled down a few things and you're talking about that, if they … besides me getting that book immediately, I haven't heard of that one, the other book that came to mind when you were talking about that, sounds like a good compliment, would be Behind the Golden Arches, the McDonald's story, all about scaling, not about numbers. A good compliment is why I scribbled that down, just for the listeners to make a note. Adam, we've always … I'm talking about back when I used to do coach realtors and I was back in my selling days in the '90s. I've always, always hammered what we track and monitor will grow and expand and you just put up a huge highlight on that, so that was awesome and, of course, a great story to go along with it. You've highlighted a whole bunch of cool things that you do. What would you say comes naturally to you in business? You get up in the morning and it just kind of happens.
It's an interesting question because I think, as a society, we have this idea that everybody has strengths and weaknesses and we need to focus on improving our weaknesses. That's kind of what we're taught in school. That's what college focuses on and I have an opposite view. I say, “Look, every person has strengths and everybody has weaknesses. There's topics, there's areas that naturally interest us and there's things that we're naturally good at.” Some people are really good with numbers, they love math, they love finance. There's other people that could barely count to 10 and you wouldn't want to let them touch your money.
Unfortunately, we say, “Okay, the guy that's not good at math, he needs to take remedial math classes, we need to take him into a Finance 101, Accounting 101 course and we need to improve that.” And I say, “To heck with it.” I say, “Focus on what you're really good at. Do one or two things better than anybody else and be willing to be horrible at all the other stuff.” When I kind of take stock of myself, when I say, “Okay, what am I really good at?” At the end of the day, I'm a big thinker. I like to play with big ideas and concepts. I very much love to spend time visioning and thinking about the future of the company and I think I'm pretty good at it. I'm also really good at marketing and I'm really good at sales. When it comes to day-to-day operations and implementation I'm horrible at a follow through. I'm horrible at the follow-up, and certainly, money is not my thing either.
Source: Pexels
[bctt tweet=”Focus on what you’re really good at.” – Adam Witty”]
For me, I'm a visionary, I'm a strategic thinker, I'm a marketer, I'm a salesman, and if you let me work in that realm of the business I'm going to exceed the expectations of my colleagues and the people around me. If, on the other hand, you want me to run the business day-to-day, if you want me to run the financial operations of the business, heck, if you want me to implement a new software system to our production team, dead on arrival, couldn't do it any worse. Those are my strengths, but the message that I have to your listeners is do one or two things better than anybody else and then build a team of people around you to make up for all your weaknesses.
Yeah, I think it's great advice, and again, I saw your team and I saw how you guys scale and I was quite impressed and then I think about just some of the listeners maybe just starting real estate, on the total opposite end of the spectrum here, and I think through when you said exactly what you just alluded to, they can surround themselves with others. So many things now, Adam, I think you'd agree, can be outsourced, so many things are very inexpensive to outsource, as they then begin to build their team and build some momentum. It's just crazy how much that's changed over the last five or ten years with virtual assistants and everything else they can get done for themselves.
So true. We have a tendency to do things that we should be outsourcing, that is almost like minimum wage work. I've seen it so many times. I've got salespeople who are making a quarter of a million, $300,000 a year and instead of hiring an assistant for 30 or $40,000 so they could go make another 100,000 they say, “Oh no, no, no. I don't want to spend the money to hire an assistant. I'll just do all this myself.” Number one, they don't do it very well, but number two, what they realize is they're actually putting a weight on their shoulder, they're putting a shackle around their ankles and instead of going out to be able to sell more and make even more money they're doing minimum wage type work.
Yeah, and then that brings back the very beginning of our conversation. Okay, because what could be going through their head is well, when, how, who? And that goes back to having the right mentors, that you alluded to, in different areas of their business and their life. Again, we came full circle there and I want them to hear that loud and clear.
A few more cool questions. I love asking all the people who I interview, Adam. You've got a lot going on clearly and a successful person kind of never stops the wheels turning. You just said it, you're a thinker, you're a big thinker. What's the next challenge you're looking to master?
We have, what I mentioned earlier was those seven pillars of authority marketing and today our core business is, of course, our book publishing business, which is our Advantage and our ForbesBooks labels and then we also have a marketing agency, which is called the Authority Institute and one of the big things we want to do in 2018 is we want to add a speaker marketing company to our Authority Institute. Most of our clients, people like you, are really gifted speakers, they want to speak, they have a vibrant message to share and the more times they're able to speak and get on stage the more it actually helps them grow their business because they have more visibility to important people. What we're working on now is building out a speaker marketing company where we can help our members get speaking opportunities, become a more prominent speaker in their industry and we're working on creating an offering that will launch in early 2018.
That's awesome. You said it at the very opening, but I can't think of any listener inside or outside this industry that can't take Advantage of many or one of the many things you guys offer. That's going to be really cool to see you roll that out, and of course, I've always been interested in what you guys are doing.
Okay. Here's kind of my wrap up question, if you will, and I'll ask for some final thoughts again later, but here's my last question. Let's let's imagine for a moment, speaking about that speaking comment you made, that you're standing in front of a room brand new wannabe authors, let's say, and they've been battling their way through some of the things you and I talked about, they got some fear, some anxiety, “Am I good enough? Do I have the right knowledge? Will someone make fun of me?” All those things you mentioned. What would be two or three very pointed strategies you'd recommend they focus on to maybe best ensure their success on that path to authorship?
Yep. I got three things. The first, if you're thinking about being an author and writing a book, the first thing that you need to know is that the worst way to make money as an author is by selling copies of your books. People have dreams that they're going to become the next J.K. Rowling and they're going to simply sit back, put their feet up and cash the royalty checks. Nothing could be further from the truth. The average business book in its lifetime sells 2,000 copies and if you're making a two dollar or three dollar royalty from your book over a lifetime that's 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 dollars. You can get rich off of a book, that's using the book as an authority building marketing tool for your business. That's the first thing I would say.
Source: Pexels
[bctt tweet=”“The worst way to make money as an author is by selling copies of your books.” – Adam Witty”]
The second thing that I would say is when it comes to a book you've got to remember that your book should be seen as a marathon, not a sprint. Your job is to create a book that you could use to grow your business and build your authority for the next 10 years. You're not looking for it to be a flash in the pan that's here today and gone tomorrow. That's an important concept. You have to be patient and I always tell people when they're marketing a book, I say, “Look, I don't want you to do 1,000 things between now and October, that's a month from now. I want you to do one thing every single day for the next year. I would much rather have you spread those activities over the long term.” That's an important thing.
The final thing that I'll say of this. Every one of us has a yearning desire in the back of our heart and in the back of our head to be recognized as an authority and expert in what we do. The difference between those that truly become the authority and those that don't is they have the guts to pick up the crown that's sitting on the ground and squarely place it on top of their head. You see, here's the big thing Chris. Anybody that's hoping and waiting that someone will crown them king is delusional. The only person that can crown you king or queen is yourself, and those that have reached the highest level of success in their industry, in their community, in their marketplace, these are men and women that have alternately had the guts to go out and grab it and put the crown on top of their own head.
I love all three. It was simply awesome. With the exception of the first one and educating them about not selling books per se, number two and three with the marathon and the crown are most definitely, again, every entrepreneur should be listening to that. I really, really appreciate your time, Adam, it was awesome really from beginning to end. We could talk for another two hours and provide some real value to these guys. I know many times when I'm on a podcast or radio show afterward I'm thinking, “Man, I wish he asked me this or I wish I thought of that.” So that we don't miss anything here for our listeners today, any last minute thoughts or comments you'd like to share? Also, what is the best way to reach you and could you share with them maybe what they'd want to do if they want to get into what you guys have called the Fast Start Author Program.
Yeah, absolutely. Let me start with a final idea, and that is you are either growing or you're dying. There's no in-between. You've made a great step by listening to this podcast to sharpen your sword, to learn and to grow, and what I learned at a very early age is that if I wanted to learn and grow throughout the rest of my life, that I would make books my best friends. To this day I read anywhere from 25 to 40 books a year and this isn't fiction. This is all non-fiction, business, self-help, motivation, how to type books. I also read a lot of biographies, I read a lot of history books because again, success leaves clues. What I would say to every listener is that if you want to be the best, at whatever it is that you want to be the best at, always remember you're either growing or you're declining, there's no in-between. If you make an investment in yourself by always learning, always growing, always picking up new skills, doing things like listening to your podcasts every week, Chris, there's no doubt that the people that do that are going to have lots of success in what they do.
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[bctt tweet=”“You’re either growing or you're dying. There's no in-between.” – Adam Witty”]
In terms of the free book that we mentioned earlier let me give that domain again, where people can get a free copy of Lead The Field. It is ForbesBooks.com/SmartRealEstate. That book will give you a great 500-foot overview of authority marketing. For those of your listeners that are committed to creating a book, committed to becoming the authority in their field, a first step that a lot of our members take is they invest in something called the Fast Start Author Program, or if they really want to go all the way, then they come to Charleston for an Authority Marketing Blueprint Day.
That's something that you did, Chris, and for most of our members, it's transformational, where we can spend the whole day creating an authority plan for their business. If that's something that is of interest to you, what I would love for your listeners to do is email me directly and they can email me at awitty@advantageww.com. They can email me directly and we can get them put in touch with somebody on our team who can help them understand that first step and how we can help them, not only become the authority in their field, but more importantly, use that authority position to grow their business.
I appreciate that and I appreciate the gift and I will say this about the visit, which I didn't say earlier. When I left the visit I said to everyone I spoke with, my wife, I said, “Geez, if I never spoke with them again, if I never wrote a book again ever, the day together crafting the kind of the marketing piece of this and the attraction marketing piece and all the things your team helped with, I gotta say was priceless really, it was, and again, if we never connected again, that day was very, very well spent.”
Okay, smart listeners, my closing thoughts here, as always you can listen to this, and I hope you do, over and over and over, but in order to experience a quantum leap that I alluded to at the very opening of this interview you've got to go take action guys. Adam has given you, man, I would say a dozen takeaways here, but I made note of Lead The Field. I made note of the ForbesBook.com/SmartRealEstate so you could get your hands on Lead The Field. The American Icon I made note to myself and there's so many other tidbits that I'm going to fill my journal with when I'm done.
I hope you can go back and listen to this and pull out some action items and literally go take action. Adam, we really appreciate you spending some time with us today. I know we all have the same 168 hours weekly and those go by so super fast and are so valuable and again, thanks for taking some of that time to share with our listeners. Thanks again.
Thank you.
Ways to contact Adam:
- Email: awitty@advantageww.com
Resources: